Reading Books Is Good for You
by Saffron R
Summary: A bored alien meets Barbara


Part 1 -- Barbara  
  
The dusty, metallic smell of the pinkish alien sand she was laying on caught in her nose. The planet's sun shone on her face -- a type of light so mellow and golden it would have suggested a late fall afternoon if it had been the Earth's sun -- Barbara Wright tried to shake off the dizzy spell which had brought on the fall, but before she could successfully do it she was fourteen years old and sitting in an ABC in some part of Bedfordshire -- she'd long since forgotten where precisely. A cup of milky coffee was in one hand and a much abused copy of Mutiny In India was in the other. A pork pie sat ignored behind her right arm.  
  
The thirty year old Barbara fought back a stab of irritation at her teenage counterpart.  
  
Silly creature, she thought, someday you'll be in a position where real good solid English food is as exotic -- and as unobtainable -- as caviar and pate de fois gras. Appreciate that pork pie.  
  
Just then a voice from somewhere behind her shoulder snapped her out of her haze.  
  
"Barb-ar-a." A man's voice. I wonder who?  
  
"Barb-ar-a?" Worried now, must be Ian.  
  
She coughed to clear out the dust she had somehow sucked into her mouth and replied through a very dry set of vocal cords, "I'm all right Ian, just got a bit dizzy. Must have been all the unaccustomed movement after having been so bone idle in the Tardis these past few days. I guess I needed the fresh air more than I thought I did."  
  
She craned her head around for a good look at her companion in arms. He was dressed in his usual tweed jacket, oxford shirt, tie and trousers -- all of vaguely interesting, well matching colours. He was nodding. Splendid -- no reason she should tell him about the memory, she tried to speak again. "My foot is throbbing. I must have put my weight on it wrong when I was trying not to fall. I guess we'll have to go back to the Tardis sooner than we expected." After Barbara's assurance that she was all right concluded with the comment about her foot, Ian clicked straight into lecture mode, "you never should have gone so far ahead of me. I thought we were supposed to be on a walk together while Susan and the Doctor tested their repairs on some console circuit boards."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "We were. It wasn't me who started poking at an ant hill and mumbling about comparative silica structure or what have you. Come to think of it -- it wasn't me who said 'go ahead without me, I'll catch you up in a minute,' either. I was the good girl in this episode, Ian, remember that." He started laughing and apologised, she tried to stand up and tried to conceal a groan with a forced, "what was in that ant hill anyway?" Ian grabbed her arm so she could take her weight off her damaged foot, his voice puffed with the effort of it. "Nothing. I just had never seen sand that pink before -- sand colour is due less to structure than composition, iron couldn't create a colour like that, and I was trying to remember what could. I should have had an easier time remembering, but...." He trailed off before speaking again, "here comes Susan. I guess we took longer than we said we would."  
  
The thin teenage girl of was medium height, dressed in sensible brown trousers and a purple and pink stripe shirt. Her distinct air of alienness was subdued with a stylish Earth haircut and her usual attitude of incredible wisdom and intense, barely controlled anxiety. She ran up to the pair after she noticed Barbara was limping. "Hurt again, Barbara? We weren't even out on the planet five minutes. Grandfather will be very upset." Barbara had a brief, but intense, struggle with her inner school mistress. Susan deserved a lecture, but the pain in her foot was beginning to travel up her leg and she might say something she'd later regret. Ian saved her the trouble of a lecture by giving Susan the glare he usually gave to students who mutilated the dissection frogs in his first year biology class. Conversation withered and they spent the next ten-minute eternity slowly moving toward the Tardis.  
  
The Doctor had been using his break from his companions wisely, all the console tests were conducted successfully and with great skill. It was amazing how quickly work was done when there was no one else around to be a distraction. It had taken him three days to fix the sensors that monitored the outside of the Tardis, a delay that trapped his companions in the Tardis until they could find out if it was safe to leave. A delay that fed into itself -- with Susan getting underfoot and Chatterton asking rather obvious technical questions every five seconds as their boredom intensified. Only Miss Wright behaved sensibly, raiding the Tardis library and reading history book after history book -- most of which were published well after her time.  
  
The doctor took a minute and wondered if he should worry about that. He was trying to remember a few of the titles he'd seen her with: Black Earth, Red Earth (ancient Egypt, that was fine), Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (also fine), Traken: Lasting Peace Finally Forged (tedious, and she had no context to place that particular history in -- but not a dangerous book), Watergate: A Nation Betrayed (uh-oh....)  
  
Then the door to the Tardis opened, and a cacophony of whining Earthling voices broke out, and he promptly forgot to interrogate Barbara about Watergate.  
  
Ian's was the one he heard first. "What I wouldn't give for an x-ray. It seems to be swelling. That's not a good sign, Barbara." Barbara responded with a prompt and rather harsh, "I told you, I'm all right! It's okay, get your hand off my foot." The Doctor turned to look, by this time Barbara was sitting in his chair and the two others were hovering around her like a pair of mother hens. He stepped in to stop the quarrel before it flared into something that would make life aboard the ship uncomfortable for everyone for days afterwards. "All right, all right children." He accentuated the children with a little glare that halted all their objections instantly. "Now what is this, Miss Wright? Gone and hurt yourself again, I suppose. What ever are we going to do with you, my dear?" He grinned in a friendly sort of way, just so she wouldn't have time to get too upset, then said, "let's take a look at this ankle." He prodded it while she winced and then shot a glance at her face. "How'd you manage this then? Slipped?" Barbara hastily shook her head. "No... I just got a bit dizzy. I think it was from the fresh air, or from the exercise after I'd lain around for so many days." He clicked his tongue, "you seem to have fallen on the ankle, my dear, your weight produced a sort of torque and twisted it, you see, unusual in cases of dizziness. Not unheard of, however. Susan?" He gestured grandly to his granddaughter, "Miss Wright needs rest, help her to her room." Susan took Barbara's arm and led her to her room. They heard Ian's voice echo down the hallway, offering to bring Barbara a cup of tea in a bit, then the door opened into Barbara's room.  
  
It was a pleasant sort of room, with a bizarrely shaped bed, a soft Victorian armchair with maroon horsehair cushions, and walls that she would have liked to hang a few pictures of London on but were instead left bare because it was incredibly difficult to hang pictures on the funny shapes in the wall. The only traces of Barbara's personality present in the cabin were the blue dressing gown with avocado-coloured flowers on hanging from the chair (it wasn't from Earth, Susan found it on a rummage through the clothing room early on) and a stack of books from the Tardis library. It was, she thought, like a room on a cruise ship. Sufficiently accommodated to permit relaxation, but not... hers. Susan helped her to the bed and she could barely suppress a little sigh of relief once all that great weight was off her ankle. Susan glanced at the foot and said, "at least the swelling's stopped. I've never seen an ankle get that fat that quickly, have you? I wonder why Grandfather didn't offer you something to kill the pain or cure the ankle... Come to think of it, do you want some soothing lotion? It's wonderfully cold and buzzy and it does so relieve the pain of sprains. Much more effective than that ice treatment you have on Earth, not as extreme on the flesh, you see, it doesn't inadvertently freeze your skin. I'll go get you some." She hurried out of the room quickly. Barbara pulled both of her legs onto the bed with a little wince, and felt herself grow more and more tired. Susan hadn't been out of the room more than a minute before Barbara fell quickly and heavily into a sound sleep.  
  
There was a spray of beige light and the world swirled around her. I must see a doctor about that dizziness, thought the dream Barbara. The dizziness ended quickly and Barbara soon got her bearings enough to look around. She was in a park, there were benches and oak trees and a little pond with some ducks. A middle aged man, in a nice suit but without a hat, appeared on the bench nearest her. He smiled and she felt her skin crawl. Suddenly, the man disappeared and was replaced by a cup of  
  
"Tea, Barbara?" She snapped out of her doze. Her bedroom whirled about and righted itself. She focused on the first view that came to her -- half the ceiling and Ian's elbow. "I said, Barbara, would you like a cup of tea?" He turned to her with such a look of concern she found herself all choked up. Ian, and the tea, were English, were home.  
  
Her face crumbled for a microsecond before she got herself back under control, but he noticed and was about to ask her what the matter was when the Tardis started shaking violently. Ian braced himself on her bedpost and tried to keep from toppling over. Barbara curled up into a ball and tried not to fall off the bed. The shaking stopped, but they didn't dare move for a few minutes in case it started again. It didn't, so Barbara sat up and Ian walked away from the bedpost. He shot a glance at the door, and another, concerned glance at her. She nodded, "Go alone. It's too much trouble to drag me to the console room with you, just go. Come back and tell me what's happening, though."  
  
  
  
He didn't come back. She lay on her bed for half an hour, waiting and getting progressively more tired. She wanted to move, but her all her limbs were heavy -- they wouldn't do what she told them to the way she wanted them to. Finally, she got out of bed and moved slowly, her body ached like she was coming down with flu. But the one pain she'd expected to feel, the pain of her broken ankle, wasn't there. Her sluggish brain didn't register it at first, but once it did, something flickered in her torpid brain. Quiet. She focussed her energy on getting out of bed. Then she tried to remain standing for more than one minute, her vision greyed out a bit -- but returned stronger than ever a moment later, and she felt slightly less sick the longer she remained on her feet. Don't Worry.  
  
She focused her attention on making it to the door of her room, and tried not to think.  
  
Out the door and all the way down the corridor. Step by step. It felt like an hour, but she realised it had been only a few minutes when she got to the end of the corridor and checked her watch. Watch? When was the last time she cared about Earth time? She summoned up her courage, and opened the door to the console room.  
  
She had been expecting a flash, a boom, or the ship starting to shake again. Something dramatic. What she got was an empty, silent console room, which was a relief for about half a second -- until she realised what a silent, empty console room meant. She took a deep breath and walked a few steps inside the room.  
  
No one had materialised. It was still empty. She was alone.  
  
Well, no, not really.  
  
Barbara blinked in superise. That was an odd thing to think. She fought back panic and a growing sense of incompetence.  
  
Deep breath.  
  
Another deep breath.  
  
Step toward the console room.  
  
Dizzy.  
  
Barbara Wright lost her balance and crashed to the floor. She sat there for a minute, shocked and dumb. She shook her head vigorously and failed to fight off an attack of childish fury.  
  
"Oh, bloody hell!" she screamed at the silence. She bounced up onto the balls of her feet and lashed out at the only thing in reach -- the Tardis console. She kicked it hard and only succeeded in stubbing her toe.  
  
The pain soon abated. She slumped back onto the floor and stared at the empty room in a silent, thoughtful way.  
  
A Brief Diversion -- Reality  
  
When Ian Chesterton watched his friend slump to the pink, sandy ground of the alien planet his first feeling was one of protective terror. Less than half a second later, as he was running to help her, he cursed himself for getting so upset over what was probably just a little stumble. As a few more seconds passed, though, and she didn't get up, his emotions swung back to a terror that was only mildly comforted by the fact that she wasn't lying in a puddle of blood and what skin he could see was still a nice, living, shade of pink.  
  
He finally reached her and tried to talk to her. She didn't respond at all. All she did was breathe. He yelled at her. Nothing. He slapped her face lightly. He slapped her face harder. Not even a twitch, just blooming red marks from where his hands hit her.  
  
He stood up, brushed the rosy sand from his knees for no particular reason, and began to yell for help.  
  
Part 2 -- A Bit of Light Reading  
  
"Adding to the national tension was the growing Japanese threat to Chinese sovereignty. Years before, Japan had gotten the formerly Chinese- controlled lands of Taiwan and Fujian as spoils of war. Since then, the leaders of the growing Japanese Empire lusted after more land on the resource rich Chinese mainland. The Chinese, naturally, resented this. At first they expressed this resentment in riots , and then from 1937 onward they waged outright war against the invaders."[1]  
  
Barbara smothered a yawn and reached for a bit of paper to mark the page she'd been reading. She pushed her self forward in her armchair she'd snuggled into and stretched her arms, then got up and walked around to get her circulation going. A brief memory of a long ago Chinese mountianscape flashed through her head and she found herself all choked up and... homesick, almost, for a situation she'd once thought was as far away from home as she could possibly get. She glanced at Red Victory: The Epic Triumph of the Long March and wondered what possessed her to select that particular book. She shook her head, and wondered if she should still be searching for her lost friends instead.  
  
Then decided against it, as the sick-to-her stomach disbelief of the last two days came creeping back to her.  
  
After she'd retreated to the floor nursing her stubbed toe she had stared at the empty console room for quite a long time. Then the numbness of shock wore off and she sprang into action, combing as much of the infinite space inside the ship as it was possible to do before she came to her senses and the two following conclusions:  
  
1.The ship was simply too big to comb productively.  
  
2. Any living person or group of people could always change his (or their) location, which meant they'd have to find her.  
  
She could only hope "they'd" either be her friends or friendly enough to help her find out where her friends had got to.  
  
Shaking off the creeping terror brought on by her memories, Barbara left the study and made her way to the food dispenser. She toggled a few switches and pushed a button and came away with a cup of tea. She then went into the console room and watched the monitor, the black and white fuzz on what she persisted in thinking of as the cathode ray tube forming meaningless patterns and providing a soothing occupation for her stunned and exhausted brain.  
  
She sat in the Doctor's old chair, the one Ian and Susan had helped her into when she broke her ankle aeons ago, finished sipping the tea, and dozed off.  
  
The tea cup tumbled from her nerveless hand into her lap, dribbling a little sugary sludge onto the browns and maroons of her tweed skirt.  
  
It's dark. Barbara's walking in the wood. All alone. Cold and dark, she has goosebumps and can't stop shivering. Dream? A pink light just appeared on the horizon. It's the wrong way for it the dawning of the sun, but it's wonderfully warm. It's peace. It'll take her wherever she wants to go, it might even take her home. She wants to be closer. She thinks to herself, " I want it to fill me. I don't want to bother with consciousness anymore -- just more light, please." Then the floor opens up and she's falling through space.  
  
  
  
Reality Again  
  
"She's been unconscious for two days, Doctor. When are you going to do something about it?" The Doctor looked up from the unconscious form on the bed to face his increasingly agitated companion. "What is there to do, my boy? The mind's a tricky thing." He looked back down at the serene face of the woman on the bed and gently brushed away a strand of hair that had drifted onto her forehead. "Yes," he murmured absently, "tricky." He shook his head regretfully and began to walk out of the room. "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" Ian yelled out, then glanced over at Barbara and began to speak in a sort of daggered whisper.  
  
"You can't just start muttering things mysteriously and expect me to go away, you know. Do you have any idea what's going on?" The Doctor looked at him with a sudden, frightening, gravity. "She's in terrible trouble. That's obvious enough. But." He stopped and started again, with the air of a man who is trying to get his phrasing exactly right. "The other...." He stopped again and huffed, frustrated at the limitations put on him by a language that had no words for the idea he wanted to impart. He started again, "I think there's someone or something in her head." Ian's head jerked violently, "she's possessed? That's not possible!" The Doctor suppressed a sigh and contented himself with rolling his eyes, " 'More things on Heaven and Earth...', dear boy. However, that's not quite what I'm trying to say. Her symptoms are consistent with...." He stopped waffling and spat the phrase out, "someone is in her head... with her, and he's trying to tell her something or convince her of something. But I wonder why.... She's a lovely woman, far more open minded, brave, and naturally kind than most of you, er, Earthmen. Still, no great mind. No particular outstanding talents. Very little grasp on knowledge of things would be useful in the greater Universe. Even differential equations give her trouble. An ordinary, workaday, blend-into-the-background sort of person." Ian looked as if he'd have dearly loved to contest this point -- but the Doctor didn't let him get a word in. "So... why would he want her? What could she give an all powerful alien intelligence of some sort?" Ian opens his mouth to retort, to redeem Barbara's intelligence for all to hear, then gets broadsided by a memory.  
  
Barbara in his classroom after school one day, carrying her grade book and a copy of the first-year history text in the crook in her arm. Blue jumper. Nice. They were talking about the hazards of moving into cheap flats. He was telling her an anecdote about a mate of his from University.  
  
"So poor old Billingsley moves into his flat, which was extremely grotty -- "  
  
"Even by male standards?" she enquires with a laugh. He smiles slightly and tries to continue his story. "Even by teenage male standards, love. But Billingsley is a fairly fastidious chap, he loves the price but hates the filth, so he decides to mix up a little something that would really clean the place up quick. So he mixes up bleach and ammonia, and spends the rest of the week in hospital!" He chuckled a bit, she frowned. He felt a pang of disappointment, it wasn't supposed to be a hilarious story, but he thought the obvious stupidity involved justified a little chuckle. Her frown was shadowed by confusion. "Why would mixing bleach and ammonia send someone to hospital?" Ian explained, mildly shocked by her ignorance. Then he gave her a ride home in his new (to him) car.  
  
The memory faded out and Ian found himself back in the Tardis, he shook his head at the Doctor. "No, she doesn't have any knowledge an alien would find useful. I hope the alien realises that and brings her back safe."  
  
The alternative, of course, was so terrible neither of them could allow it into their thoughts, or stop thinking about it in spite of themselves.  
  
  
  
Part 3 -- In the Dream Time  
  
"Barbara? Barbara?" Barbara came to on a cold, flat, vaguely metallic surface.  
  
She felt like her bones were paste, but it seemed she could still move around. There was light, nothing to see except floor and sky of differing shades of grey. She pushed her torso up off the cold surface, and propped herself up with her left arm. Her shirtsleeve was torn. She had a small bruise on her forearm.  
  
But she had fallen from how high?  
  
Pushing the thought of her fall out of her mind, she got to her feet and began to walk toward the voice calling her name.  
  
Then she began to wonder why she wanted to walk toward someone who might very well be about to kill her.  
  
She didn't ask this question for long, however. The voice was too compelling, an auditory version of the pink light in the wood.  
  
As she kept walking, the scenery changed. From grey nothing to a London street. From a London Street to the village of her childhood, from her home village to the Cave of Skulls. To Paris. To Rome. To Skaro.  
  
The voice called again.  
  
"Bar-bar-a?"  
  
To Salisbury Plain.  
  
"Bar-bar-a?"  
  
To London, but not her London... and onward.  
  
In the middle of Byzantium, a man materialised in front of her. He doffed his top hat and smiled. She felt a jolt of recognition.  
  
"Have I seen you somewhere before?" she blurted, despite herself.  
  
He smiled. It was quite a nice smile, but there was a lot of pain in it, "I've been waiting for years to meet someone like you."  
  
Barbara strove to keep her tea down, she felt flattered and screechingly terrified at the same time -- but things had gotten so very strange she couldn't quite say what it was about him that frightened her. He seemed like an entirely pleasant -- normal, even -- gentleman.  
  
When she finally managed to get a rein in on her stomach, she opened her mouth and asked the question that had been plaguing her since she woke up from her first collapse so many days ago.  
  
"Why?"  
  
The gentleman gave her a Gallic shrug, and another winsome smile. "Because you interest me, Barbara. I've been trapped on this planet for so very long, and your mind has so many stories in it. Incredible powers of invention. I've never seen anything like it before. Although," he wrinkled his nose, "some of them are a bit sick. Twelve million people smothering to death in fake showers they were forced to take, human sacrifices to appease bird gods, a ruler of a land who is so barbaric he stakes people on sharp poles and leaves them to die, little royal children bayoneted in a room in the middle of nowhere by peasants...." He clicked his tongue. "Frankly, I'm more than a bit disturbed by you sometimes, but --"  
  
Barbara tried to anticipate him, "You love me? Well, I'm sorry, but I --" He looked at her with a tinge of regret. "No. I don't love you. I just want your mind."  
  
Barbara's brain absolutely refused to let her understand the meaning of what he had just said, so she tried to finish her sentence. " I'm not interested. You seem very nice, but I want to go back ho-o-ome." She tried to keep a little poise, but it was proving a bit much for her. She sobbed soundlessly and so hard the muscles in her back hurt and she couldn't help hyperventilating. His meaning was working its way through her brain and into her heart.  
  
She collapsed on the floor and writhed in agony until the dream figure allowed her to black out.  
  
  
  
The Sickroom  
  
Susan looked up from the copy of Wuthering Heights she'd been reading aloud to Barbara since early that afternoon. Cathy had just married the Other Man, and Heathcliff was going berserk. Susan, of course, couldn't care less about any of the characters, but she thought Barbara might like to hear a classic from her native land. She looked at the woman on the bed, the woman who'd been like a mother to her for far too short a time, and decided her hair was looking distinctly ratty. She fetched a pearl handled brush from her room, perched on the bed, and settled Barbara's head gently on her lap. She took out the grips and began to brush out the knots, marvelling at the many shades mouse brown hair could have in it.  
  
  
  
Part 4 -- The Convicted  
  
The horror had long since faded, it was replaced with a dull ache in her chest.  
  
She sat on the floor and tried to make her skirt behave itself. The stranger had come back, with a pork pie and some milk. Barbara didn't like milk, but she drank it just the same. "I'm not a story teller," she tried to tell him. "Those things that excited you -- that actually happened, it's a part of my planet's history. Everyone knows them." The stranger shook his head, "The man didn't know them, the girl didn't know them: they are your people."  
  
Barbara was conscious of a faint stab of despair at having lost the argument, but she shooed it away. She couldn't afford to be anything but numb.  
  
"Oh."  
  
He started to explain. "The images in the man's mind were very boring. Food, maths, you, some cityscape, some old man, the girl." He smiled wryly, "the girl's thoughts were accompanied by a high-pitched nervous white noise. I couldn't begin to read hers."  
  
Then he grew solemn, "Your thoughts, however, amused me. They alternated between the prosaic and the fabulous -- the man and the girl, then wonderful stories, buildings, and works of art. Amusement is vital to me, it is nourishment. I haven't been properly amused since they abandoned me here. You can amuse me, forever."  
  
She shook her head and said, a trifle listlessly, "I'd rather die."  
  
He stared straight into her eyes, he had such odd coloured eyes. Blue, like human ones, until you reached the irises, which were dark velvet purple instead of black. In the manner of one offering a compromise to an overindulged child, he said, "I can kill you and take your memories, if you'd like. Not the private, personal ones -- those bore me -- but the splendid epics you filled your head with. I'd take those, and you wouldn't have to suffer so far from home any more."  
  
Something in his tone ignited a furious rebellion in her. Maybe it was the cavalier way with which he'd talked of killing her, maybe it was because he treated the real life misery of millions (who were no less miserable because those disasters happened long ago/ hadn't happened yet/ would happen in the far future) as just another trifle -- as relevant and as soapy as an episode of Coronation Street or Mrs. Dale's Diary. Maybe she was just mad because he'd made her so miserable. Whatever the cause, the psyche of Barbara Wright caught fire. Barbara the dream figure could hear herself roar get out! The passion and heat of her fury frightened her. It was so intense she lost the ability to think coherently, she could feel the alien force attempt resist her, but she was too mad to control her hate and she could feel his force weaken, the skin of the stranger in front of her began to get pink, then red, then it blistered. He cried and pleaded for mercy, he said he hadn't done anything wrong, that his people imprisoned him unjustly. She didn't believe him, anyone who could torture her like that.... His second degree burns deepened into third degree burns. They both started crying at the same time, but she couldn't stop, her fury was still out of her control.  
  
Awake  
  
When he was finally charcoal, a little grey dust that matched the grey floor of her dreamscape, she woke up. For real, this time. Ian, Susan, and the Doctor were trying to restrain her, Ian holding both her legs and the Doctor and Susan had an arm each. Apparently, she had been having a seizure. "Get off the planet!" she shrieked. "Now! Hurry! I didn't kill him -- he might come back. We have to go!"  
  
Suprisingly, the Doctor left the room straight away and did as he was bid. She shook and sobbed. Ian and Susan tried to comfort her but she was beyond them. She collapsed forward into the blankets and fell silent, but still she shook.  
  
Finally, Susan pulled a very reluctant Ian out of the room and left Barbara to finish off her nightmare.  
  
Passing Time  
  
After two days, she started eating food again, but she couldn't bear drinking tea or coffee. They floated around the Universe in the Ship for awhile, then the Doctor finally landed on a very nice planet with a perpetual early summer climate, lovely beaches with great (but not very dangerous) surf, and unparalleled horticultural beauty. Barbara sunned on the beaches with Susan, and swam with Ian. (He later remarked that he'd never seen her enjoy exercise quite so much.) She picked bouquets of flowers, and did a little painting, but she didn't pick up a book the entire time. She never told anyone what happened, either.  
  
The last night they were there, she and the Doctor walked along the beach, his arm over hers. (Or hers over his, depending on how charitable you want to be to a poor old man having a hard time walking in wonderfully soft, golden sand.) He cleared his throat and she looked over at him, "Are you okay, Doctor?" He looked right back at her, and her heart sank because she did not want to be discussing this. "I don't quite know, Miss Wright. Are you okay?" She shook her head, "no." He nodded, and said, "I'm sorry." I forgot that some cultures deserted their criminals on distant planets. I should have warned you." She looked at him with genuine curiosity and growing anger, "you mean, there was some way I could have avoided that... that ordeal?"  
  
"Well, no."  
  
She took a deep breath, looked him directly in the eye, and smiled "Don't worry, then. I'll be alright eventually."  
  
The lines in his face smoothed out slightly.  
  
They walked toward the shore line, and began to walk along it. He skirted the shore, trying to keep his shoes dry, she skimmed the water with her bare feet.  
  
The Doctor spoke, "you know, Miss Wright, we really must go to the Eye of Orion...."  
  
His voice echoed down the beach and they headed off into the sunset.  
  
  
  
----------------------- [1]Legal note: "Red Victory" passage actually taken from "Communist Reality and Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China" written on 5 October, 2000 by Mary Beth LaRivee, as a paper for China and the Modern World -- a class at UMass Lowell 


End file.
